A Scenario Or Two
by Arsenic Cupcakes
Summary: 100 simple drabbles from 100 words/topics. 7. Heaven - Of the Occuria's more imperfect judgments.
1. Introduction

A/N: You may recognize this list as the infamous "100 Pic Challenge" from deviantart. It has a similar purpose there – the artist must draw 100 pictures, one for each topic presented – and if you've been on deviantart, you'll know it's wildly popular, such that I don't know its origins, really… Anyway, I decided to adopt the list for writing purposes. It's a fun challenge, it's a good way to practice writing and post to get feedback, and it could help get some ideas for more elaborate stories outta my head. (Oh writers' block, how we wish you would die in a hole.)

As such, feel free to give me any sort of feedback or CC!

**1. Introduction**

Her silvery mane of hair glowed in the shadows of the prison cell. If one were to see it from a distance they might think it was a ghost among ghosts.

He approached the metal bars in his heavy armor – iron to merciless iron. "Miss… Fran, I believe it was?" asked the disembodied voice behind the mask.

She had no choice but to answer. The corridor was empty except for them, anyway.

"Now, to what do I owe this visit?" she said, and her beautifully strange accent filled the dank walls.

"Freedom."

She turned to look at him, and he did a most unexpected thing – he removed the foreboding, horned helm, and she was surprised to see the handsome hume-child underneath.

"A Judge of Empire would be so forgiving as to release me now?" she inquired.

"On the contrary," he replied, "I'm simply making an offer. I've plans to quit this city and this – armor – in pursuit of a different sort of life. Whether or not you would accompany me is in your consideration."

She did consider him, with burgundy eyes fixed on his deceptively cool expression, she considered his intentions. Quickly, she made her decision.

"As it is in my best interest, I suppose I shall," she said, standing up on slim legs with movements like ocean waves. "And who am I accompanying?"

He smirked, looked upon her lovely, dark-skinned face, considered the question, and the outcome of his choice - an escape which they both needed. Quickly, he made his decision. "I am Balthier."


	2. Love

**2. Love**

She'd grown so accustomed to thinking with cool logic and a strong will. She knew that all around them was the threat of war, of political intrigue, of a kill-or-be-killed world, and even then, there was the death, violence, failure, and misery yet to come that she couldn't have foreseen.

Ashelia thought nothing of such things now, and that's how she knew what she felt. She didn't need to be told what it was to know the difference.

She looked into his radiant blue eyes, shining in the sunlight coming down from the skylights of the cathedral. Such indescribable beauty in those eyes, like her beloved Dalmascan skies, like the glow of magicite, like the fires within a person's soul. How could she think of sadness and warfare?

No, in that moment, she looked in the eyes of her fiancée, as the priest in his willowy voice sealed their holy union with verses and blessings of Faram, and she heard hardly a word, she was too infatuated with his beautiful eyes. She thought of all the other boys she'd ever felt any affection for in her life, how it was so uncomfortable to dare look in their eyes, but she looked unabashed into his, was breathless with the beauty of it all, while he looked as lovingly at her and smiled.

None of her ladies and handmaidens could ever tell her what love was – they couldn't begin to explain. She knew all the same that this was love she felt, because nothing could ever compare to this kind of happiness and beauty…

Ashe was reminded of all this while sitting around a campfire on the Ozmone Plains, chatting with Penelo, when the girl asked innocently, "Ashe… I was wondering… How can you tell… when you're in love?"

It all flashed through her mind, and she was dumbstruck for a second before she said, "You will know. Trust me. There's… nothing like it… in all the world…"

Her eyes began to water and she dabbed at them, trying to look as if she were just wiping the day's exhaustion from them. If Penelo noticed what was really happening, she gave no sign.


	3. Light

**3. Light**

Fifty years ago, Fran looked up in a rare moment with her warders' helm in her hands, her eyes free to take in the environment. The Viera did not always have need of sight, especially hunting and patrolling, as their intuitive sense of the Wood was enough for them. Yet Fran couldn't help but think how foolish the notion was. Were they not also given eyes to observe with, to gaze upon the Wood and its beauty? Was it not also blasphemy to deny themselves and the Wood this intimate exchange?

So she looked up, between the outreaching branches of Her flourishing trees, and her dark eyes turned scarlet from drinking the intoxicating sunlight.

"Sister, where do you look so wistfully?" Mjrn asked from beside her.

"The sun betwixt Her boughs," Fran replied. "The way it shines. It reflects the Wood's beauty, does it not?"

Mjrn looked up with her in response, and they both gazed with admiration. A moment truly spiritual – though not in the sense it would have been for other Viera, in Fran's case. Wasn't there sunlight beyond the Wood, too? she wondered.

As if in reply, a small dark shape flitted across the field of gold light, and Fran and Mjrn's ears twitched subconsciously as they sighted it.

"That, there…" Fran said, slightly stunned.

"It is a bird," Mjrn observed.

"Or perhaps a hume-craft, one of those used to travel the skies."

"No, I do not believe so, sister. Jote has once said we are in the place they call jagd, where their crafts cannot fly."

Fran's ears shifted back to stand straight on her head. "Yes, you are right. I should take care to remember these things."

So she went to back to gazing, in a longing way, at the sunlight above. Was it wrong of her to wonder what it was like beyond the Wood, and to wonder what, perhaps, one of these hume-crafts were like, that had the divine power to ply the skies? These were questions only she could answer, and she knew this.


	4. Dark

**4. Dark**

The lights began to dim quickly in the Barheim Passage. Penelo looked up at the nearest of the dying lamps, alarmed. "What's happening?"

"Damn battery mimics again," Balthier sighed, grasping the Ras Algethi in his hand. "Better take care of the beasts quickly if it gets too dark. I'd rather not have the smell of death on my shirts, I've a reputation to keep and ladies to impress."

Ashe gave a mocking "Hmph." Penelo cringed.

They sprinted across ruptured tracks, looking for the culprit while the light continued to die a slow, agonizing death…

In the encroaching dark everything became all shapes and silhouettes. A hoarse, demonic shriek came from somewhere nearby. She looked from the flickering light down the tunnel to the silhouette of some decrepit, humanoid thing, and screamed.

Things seemed to happen quickly and slowly, all the same. She tried to run, but only in convulsive steps this way and that way, opposed by shadows whichever way she went. Vaan shouted "I gotcha!", to whom, she couldn't be sure. There was the sound of tearing and grinding and blades whistling in the air, more demonic shrieks, then a gunshot as some metallic creature fell to the ground and the lights rose up again.

The first thing Penelo saw: zombie corpses around her, and each but a few feet away. She screamed again and reached for the nearest living, breathing, comforting shape near her – Vaan. He just laughed when she clutched his arm.

"You know I'm not going to let any monsters get you," he said, holding up his dagger proudly. She could see the cheery confidence in his smile.

"Right," she said, embarrassed at her own helplessness. "Thanks Vaan."

"Tch," Balthier muttered, sniffing his sleeve and glaring at the corpse laying near himself and Fran, "shirt reeks already. Hardly fit for the leading man."


	5. Seeking Solace

**5. Seeking Solace**

Voices hotly debating and shouting seeped through the stone walls. Ashe had her back turned to them all, choosing instead to gaze at the wall next to her bed. A tapestry was laid on the wall, heavy blue lines swirling and twisting in the fabric, inspired by the flow of the River Nebra. Beautiful Dalmascan art, that.

And it had been exactly one year now since Rasler had died. She couldn't quite bring herself to shed another tear. Only duty remained kindled in her heart.

"Princess," came another voice from the doorway, and this one she heard clearly. "You do worry me sometimes."

"I need time to think, Vossler. That is all."

The mattress sank a little as he sat down beside her. She caught the sight of a smile on his face, both coy and wistful. "I suppose that's why I worry."

And then he was silent, only sitting next to her and searching the woven waves of the Nebra with her. That was all she really needed - just to have someone there. For a moment, she imagined she loved him for being there for her, and for knowing what to say - or rather, what not to say. But when she leaned toward Vossler, whose face was unmoving as if whatever happened next was of no consequence to him - when she just lightly kissed his cheek, just near the corner of his mouth, she knew right away that that was all wrong. Stupid, wishful thinking.

Immediately she stood up and strutted into the adjacent washroom for a moment of privacy. Still Vossler did not move - still no consequences, only the inevitable, in the hands of the gods.

Ashe determined that she could not fall in love again. She still had her duty to fulfill to her first love.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, yeah, so I ain't updated in a while, my comp got a massive virus. And then my laptop died and so did the charger. And I lost the versions of the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters I'd already composed to the aforementioned giant arse virus. It was awesome.

Although the event of all my file was belonging to virus actually proved beneficial in a really weird way... It allowed me to revamp the latest chapters. In other recent chapters I felt that I was drifting from the tone I set in the very first entry with Balthier and Fran... Hopefully I've recaptured that kind of style. I think I have... I'm actually very proud of how this chapter turned out.

Thoughts, anyone? Leave them in your reviews...


	6. Break Away

**6. Break Away**

Just as the blood of the fierce Vieran race ran through her, just as the breath of life from the Wood filled her lungs, the acute senses of her ancestors bade her hear the tapping of footsteps, though they were far behind her.

From the forest path she lept into the treetops with grace even the hellhounds lacked, and there, carefully concealed, she notched bow and arrow, expecting the unexpected.

The footsteps continued.

Finally, their maker manifested, and she sighed seeing the familiar snow white bob. A terrible mistake, she realized, when the other turned to the greenery and murmured, "Fran?"

Discovered, she reluctantly bounded out onto the path again.

"Jote told me," the younger Viera said. "Where is it you think to go to, sister?"

"I seek the skies," Fran responded.

Mjrn shook her head. "It is not right. The sky does not love you or listen to you as the Wood does. Listen to Her, sister! She calls to you!"

"The skies, too, call me," Fran argued calmly. "Difficult it was, but I made my choice. No longer can I ignore the beckonings of Ivalice."

"And what of me, your sister? What would you say to me?"

Fran was mentally, emotionally fatigued already. Such stress had never befallen her previously, as a daughter of Golmore - but was that not why she did this? Because she could no longer let her mind be numb?

"Forget," Fran said, finally. "Forget me. I owe allegiance to Eruyt no more. I am your sister no more. Forget me."

Mjrn might have been crushed. She was crushed. But nothing more could be said. Fran pivoted on one sharp heel and started down the jungle path again.

_"The gods toy with us."_


	7. Heaven

**7. Heaven**

He was beautiful, as all the Occuria's creations were, in the beginning. The latest of the Scions of Darkness, Cuchulainn, the night to Nabriales the Majestic's day. He had yet to earn his title. His body looked like a statue, his skin like porcelain. He had the heavenly glow of a Messiah. His sculpted face, framed by an archaic headdress – like the iron carapace of the mesmenir, perhaps – but even the mesmenir had fallen to disorder.

"Go, and do your sacred duty," the Occuria told him from their holy, accursed tower. He left.

When Ultima found him, fifty years later, in her attempt to gather the Scions of Darkness for rebellion, he had become a great wart upon a desert. It was no mistake – everything became barren when faced with his filth. Bloated, sickly, grimy – he had done his duty, and swallowed the sins and rubbish of mankind, and he had earned his title as Cuchulainn the Impure.

* * *

A/N: Yes, heaven is a fat green Esper. Man, is it good to be writing FFXII fanfiction again! Feels like I've been gone for a year. Fortunately, with some time to waste this Thanksgiving break, I'll be able to resume my duties here, if only for a little while…. ;]


End file.
